Blame It On Cyndi Lauper All Of A Sudden, It`s Hip To Watch Wrestling. The Term We`ve Coined Is ``wrestling Chic.`` -- Mark Braff, Usa Network Manager For Sports Publicity

March 18, 1985|By Robin Branch, Columnist

What more evidence do we need that the time is here to say that nobody can coin a term without a license?

Haven`t I campaigned from the Panhandle to Key West? Haven`t I tried to enlist the support of the governor, all my congresspersons, the president of the Audubon Society and the postmaster general?

Well, here you have the result of their apathy, and of yours: Some loony from television-land coins the term ``wrestling chic.``

Now all I`m saying is that no person should be granted a license to coin terms who doesn`t have an IQ larger than his neck size.

Is that asking too much?

Well, it`s too late now. Once somebody gets away with coining a term, we`re stuck with it forever, which is why you hear people saying ``at this point in time`` even though it was coined by John Dean (neck size 17) for the sole purpose of creating longer breathing spaces between questions at the Watergate hearings AND HAS NO MEANING.

Sorry. It`s an emotional topic.

But anyhow, what you`re wondering is how wrestling could conceivably be associated with chic, even in the mind of a Muscovey duck much less in the mind of an actual person, even if that person is a ``sports publicity manager,`` and that`s what I was going to explain.

The answer is rock music.

(``If rock music is the answer,`` I hear you asking, horrified, ``what on earth is the question?`` And I know what you mean. But remember, I don`t make this stuff up. I just explain it. And that isn`t always easy, if I may say so, even without a lot interruptions, so please try to follow this.)

Anyhow, as I was explaining, rock music discovered wrestling not long ago, and it was love at first sight, which is just what you might have expected. The only surprising thing is that it didn`t happen sooner, except that neither party to the love affair is what you could call famous for its mental acuity.

Speaking personally, I`d like to see a wrestling match about as much as I`d like to hear the Boomtown Rats sight-reading Mahler, which is not very much, but I can see that if ever two entertainments were made for each other, rock and wrestling are the two.

It won`t, as you students of history can confirm, be the first alliance cemented by a shared affinity for bizarre dress and gross behavior.

But still, you ask, where does chic come into it?

Well, this charming alliance of the bizarre/gross, naturally, attracted the ever-restless eye of the trendiest of the trendy (who, before this, gave us the amusing concept of death by recreational cocaine), which was all it took to elevate wrestling from blue-collar schtick to trend-setter chic.

This, in turn, meant that all of a sudden there was lots of money to be made from it, and that`s how it comes about that we have a sports publicity manager coining terms in public.

That`s also how it comes about that our sensibilities have been assaulted in recent days by 7,000 photographs of rock star Cyndi Lauper (a woman who selects her wardrobe from the discard pile behind Goodwill Industries) appearing before us with wrestler Hulk Hogan (a man dressed in a sleeveless undershirt with a bow tie) to personify this new and electrifying Trend-of- the-Month.

Still to be unveiled are a prime-time wrestling show, a Saturday cartoon wrestling show, a wrestling talk show, and wrestling dolls in the likenesses of Hogan, Jimmy ``Superfly`` Snuka, Iron Sheik and the ever-popular Big John Studd.